Is MCPS doing enough to educate students on the impact of factors in the environment, like pollution? How is the school working toward ensuring a better environment in the community? What are small and big initiatives in school and in MCPS that are working toward a better and more sustainable future?
These are all questions that honors chemistry students thought when teacher Aileen Ruderman introduced a new activity. Students would be working on an activity on microplastics and how they are currently affecting the world, and the shockingly overwhelming discovery of microplastics in foods that humans regularly ingest. “I thought the activity was really interesting,” sophomore Jasmine Wang said. “It was also kind of scary though, because I didn’t realize how bad plastic pollution really is.”
Ruderman taught the microplastics activity to not only further students’ awareness of factors that pollute the environment, but spread the word throughout the school of the need to review the dangers that will negatively impact the environment. “Part of our science standards are trying to bring real world situations into the science classroom to excite students, especially with changing the environment, so students are knowledgeable and can make good choices,” Ruderman said. “They’re finding plastics in animal bodies, and all different ways, and we need to figure out what is our relationship with plastics? How are we going to fix this problem? Are we going to be better at recycling? Are we going to be more accountable in not trashing the world?”
This class activity showed the shift from the normal school curriculum of unit conversions and significant figures. This subtle yet apparent nudge toward furthering students’ education on environmental protections and the factors that are contributing to pollution is hoped to lead to more environmental awareness in schools and the MCPS community. “We do have an environmental club here, we have a gardening club, we have a recycling program. We do do a lot, and it’s a big school, everyone’s really busy, and you’ll see, in the hallways after lunch people have not disposed of their garbage properly. I think we are starting to become more environmentally friendly,” Ruderman said.
MCPS has taken significant steps toward protecting the environment. Recently, MCPS, alongside the Division of Sustainability and Compliance (DSC), released the Sustainability Action Plan, a form completed annually to ensure that every school is correctly implementing environmental awareness and protection policies and regulations.
The Sustainability Action Plan asks schools to list sustainability teams and student-led environmental clubs and teams. The form also features specific ways that staff, students and community members can properly implement environmental awareness, which includes ways schools can conserve energy, reduce their carbon footprint, reduce energy use, increase recycling participation and conserve water.
